The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  “Even so, mon ami, not everyone would have troubled to get out of bed in the middle of the night as you did. However,” she added with a smile, “it is not difficult to see that you are the type of man who would loathe any further allusion to the subject.”

  “You’re quite right there, Madame,” laughed Standish. “He might even blush.”

  “And so,” she continued, “let’s come to the next point. What do we do now?”

  The laugh faded; Standish looked at her gravely.

  “Madame,” he said, “there is no good in beating about the bush. Last night’s events prove conclusively that we are up against a powerful and dangerous organisation. What that organisation is it is Captain Drummond’s and my job to try and find out. With you, however, it is a different matter altogether. You have become mixed up in it by a sheer accident, and to be perfectly frank I do not see that you can help us any more. You have told us all you know, and it merely means that you are running an unnecessary risk by remaining here.”

  “What then do you suggest that I should do?” she asked quietly.

  “Disappear, at any rate temporarily,” answered Standish. “Go on a motor tour; anything you like. It will be necessary for us to remain here for a day or two over this Fromac affair, but then we shall be returning to England ourselves. And I know that we shall both feel easier in our minds if we know you are safe.”

  “What about Humphrey Gasdon?” she asked.

  “The main object in meeting him has gone,” said Standish. “We have found out from Lidet about Charles Burton. He left the Ruhl in Nice last Friday. From there he went to Paris.”

  “Nevertheless,” she said thoughtfully, “I would like you to meet Humphrey. I have a feeling, Mr. Standish, that he can help you. As I told you last night he is a strange man, with an almost uncanny knowledge of all sorts of strange things.”

  “Well, Madame,” remarked Standish, “from what you said there should be no difficulty in making his acquaintance at the bar.”

  “None. For all that, I think I will come too.”

  “Stop, please,” she said with a smile as Standish started to protest. “Your solicitude for my safety is very sweet and I appreciate it. But I am not going to run away from here because a miserable waiter tries to stab me. And that being the case I, personally, shall lunch with Humphrey today. I want his opinion on this strange attempt on my life. You and Captain Drummond must, of course, please yourselves. But should you happen to be in the bar of the Negresco at twelve o’clock today we could doubtless all lunch together.”

  “We capitulate, Madame,” laughed Standish. “So may we have the pleasure of taking you over?”

  “Enchantée, m’ sieu. I will be in the lounge at eleven thirty.”

  “What about a leg-stretcher?” said Drummond as they went down the stairs, but Standish shook his head.

  “Not for me, old boy. Developments in this affair are so rapid that a full report to the Chief is indicated.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Drummond. “Thank God! no one can read my writing, so get to it, my trusty old comrade.”

  He strolled through the open door and across the promenade. The sea was at its bluest, and for a while he stood, with eyes half closed, accustoming himself to the glare. To the right behind the Casino lay the harbour full of yachts of all sizes, and after a time he sauntered in that direction. How often, he reflected savagely, must Jimmy have taken the same stroll!

  By the door of the Casino he paused; should he go in and have a look at the papers? He decided he would and, after getting the Continental Daily Mail from the reading-room, he threw himself into an easy chair by the big window in the bar.

  The place was almost empty, and beckoning to the barman he ordered some beer. And it was while he was consuming it, resignedly—in Drummond’s estimation, French beer was an outrage on public decency, and a probable cause of civil riot—that he noticed two men standing by the door in earnest conversation. And suddenly one of them glanced at him, only to look away immediately on catching his eye.

  A faint smile twitched round his lips; some more developments for Standish. Then from behind his paper he waited the next move.

  It came shortly. One man left the place; the other having given an order to the barman, came over to the window and took the easy chair next to his.

  “Captain Drummond, I believe,” he began without any preamble.

  “Your belief is correct,” said Drummond. “Though I fear you have the advantage of me.”

  “My name is quite immaterial,” remarked the stranger lighting a cigarette. “From what happened at the hotel last night I gather that you are a man of prompt action. Am I right?”

  Drummond stared at him thoughtfully.

  “Let us proceed on that assumption,” he said.

  “Good. I am going to suggest a very prompt action to you now.”

  Drummond raised his eyebrows.

  “Very kind of you,” he drawled. “I am agog with excitement.”

  “It is,” continued the man calmly, “that you quit this place, and go on quitting. That you disappear entirely from the haunts of men, you and your friend—and hide yourselves, where not even your wife, if you have one, can find you.”

  “Splendid,” cried Drummond, pouring out some more beer. “May I ask why you suggest those somewhat drastic manoeuvres?”

  “For the simple reason that if you don’t do what I say you will be killed as surely as night follows day. You laugh, but I can assure you, Captain Drummond, that it is no laughing matter. I myself am running a grave risk in talking to you. But I disapprove of life being taken unless it is unavoidable. And so I am warning you; disappear. For you have no more chance of escaping, if you continue on your present line, than a moth has of coming alive out of a killing-bottle.”

  “My dear fellow, your solicitude for my safety is as touching as your simile is apt. What, precisely, may I ask, is my present line?”

  “You are out here in connection with the death of Major Latimer,” answered the man quietly. “Further enquiries on that subject can only result in your own. So if you take my advice you will beat it while the going is good.”

  The man drained his glass and rose to his feet.

  “I can assure you,” he went on, “that I am not exaggerating. I am speaking honest, unvarnished truth. You are meddling in things of the magnitude of which even I have only a hazy idea. And if you go on doing so you will die with the utmost certainty. Good morning.”

  “It would be a much better one if this beer wasn’t so foul,” said Drummond. “However, I’m much obliged to you for our entertaining little chat.”

  He watched the man till he was out of sight; then he beckoned to the bar-tender.

  “Have you any idea who that gentleman was?” he asked.

  “None at all, sir,” said the barman. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Drummond lit a cigarette, and lay back in his chair. That the man had been in earnest he had no doubt. The quiet way in which he had spoken, the complete absence of any truculence or threats, proved that. And the calm assurance with which he had mentioned Jimmy Latimer showed that he had reliable inside information.

  It was very decent of the man, reflected Drummond. What he had said about the risk he ran himself was in all probability correct. And he had done it for an absolute stranger. The point to be decided, however, was what notice, if any, should be taken of the warning.

  All through his long and troublous career, there was one mistake Drummond had never committed; he had never underestimated his opponents. And the extreme efficiency of the staff work on the other side, in this case, showed that it was doubly important not to do so now. The difficulty lay in the fact that neither Standish nor he knew who those opponents were, whereas they themselves were marked down. As things stood at the moment, the dice were heavily loaded against them. Moreover, he failed to see how that state of affairs could be rectified unless they actually did what the stranger had recommended
—disappear.

  Suddenly he saw Standish strolling along the road outside, and knocking on the window he beckoned him in.

  “I’ve had a little chat since I left you, Ronald.” he said. “With a stranger of kindly disposition.”

  Standish listened in silence, though his face became more and more grave.

  “It’s not the threat of death that I mind,” he said when Drummond had finished. “We’re used to that. It’s the infernal quickness of their information bureau.”

  “Have you got that letter off to the Chief?”

  “Yes. But I’ll send along a postscript about this. In any event one thing is now absolutely proved. Jimmy was murdered.”

  “That’s so.” Drummond glanced at his watch. “What about this lunch?”

  “I’m still for going. It won’t compromise Madame Pélain more than she is compromised already, and the whole thing is so incredibly obscure that any chance of a ray of light ought not to be missed. But we’d better watch our step with the gentleman.”

  “You bet your life,” said Drummond. “Let’s get the bus.”

  They walked in silence through the drifting crowd of loiterers, each busy with his own thoughts. It was a perfect Riviera day, and the sun had brought the antiques from their lairs in droves. Vendors of tinted spectacles proffered their wares hopefully; it seemed impossible that there could be anything dark and sinister under the surface. And when they brought the car round to the hotel to find Madame Pélain waiting for them, completely surrounded by the knitting brigade, it seemed more impossible still. Nothing more nerve-shattering than a dropped stitch could ever happen in such an atmosphere.

  She seemed in no way surprised when Drummond told her of his encounter in the Casino. But her reaction to it was very definite.

  “It is what you must both do, my friends. I have been thinking things over since I saw you. When you leave Cannes you must vanish into thin air. If, as we think, big things are afoot, you must become the hunters and not the hunted. It is they who must be in ignorance of where you are going to strike; not the other way round, as it is at the moment.”

  “There is a lot in what you say, Madame,” said Standish. “And my own inclination would be to get away at once. The trouble is the police formalities over last night.”

  “I think,” she said, “that I can probably arrange matters over that. For I, too, have come to the conclusion that Cannes is not the only place in the world. And if I announce my intention of not pressing the charge against the wretched man, there should not be much bother.”

  She smiled slightly.

  “Our police are very amenable at times.”

  “I am glad you have decided that,” remarked Drummond. “We shall both feel easier in our minds And even though I think that as soon as we have gone you will be safe, don’t relax your guard, Madame. I am beginning to have a very healthy respect for these gentlemen, whoever they may be.”

  They swung into the Promenade des Anglais and a few minutes later pulled up outside the Negresco.

  “Now let us see if we are in luck,” she said, as they entered the hotel. “We are; the man himself.”

  A tall, hatchet-faced man was standing by the concierge’s desk glancing through a bundle of letters. On one cheek was the scar of an old wound, and his hands were the hands of a man on whose face such a mark would cause no surprise. His hair was greying; his age, the early fifties. And both Drummond and Standish, than whom no better judges of a man existed, metaphorically put their thumbs up.

  “Good morning, Humphrey.”

  With a start he looked up.

  “Marie!” he cried, and bending over kissed her hand—an action which only one Englishman in a hundred can do without looking a fool. “This is delightful. You will join me in an aperitif?”

  “Humphrey, I want you to meet two friends of mine—Captain Drummond and Mr. Standish.”

  “Delighted. Let us become further acquainted in the bar. My mail seems more unbelievably dull than usual. And now”—when they were settled in a corner—”tell me what fortunate chance has brought you here?”

  “Easily told,” she laughed. “The fact that Captain Drummond couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “I fear I may seem dense,” he said with a smile, “but I think you must admit that your remark requires a little elucidation.”

  He listened in silence, and when she had finished, he lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “I congratulate you, Captain Drummond,” he said at length. “Though you hardly look the sort of bloke with whom congratulations cut much ice. What a very remarkable story.”

  “Can you throw any light on the darkness, Humphrey?” And then she gave a sudden exclamation. “Look, Captain Drummond,” she whispered. “Just coming into the bar now. Madame Pilofsky.”

  Drummond glanced up, and as quickly looked away again.

  “Pilofsky,” he muttered. “Ronald, it’s Madame Tomesco.”

  “Pilofsky!” drawled Humphrey Gasdon, as she went back into the hall. “Tomesco! A rose by any name, etc. What seems more to the point, however, than the name, is the rose itself.”

  “Do you know the lady?” asked Drummond.

  “By sight—well.”

  “Who is she?”

  “The mistress of one of the most dangerous men in Europe—Menalin.”

  “Good God!” cried Standish. “The Russian financier.”

  “Is he Russian? Who knows? He is cosmopolitan. He knows no country; he cares for no country. He cares for nothing in this world save himself. And he is mad.”

  “Mad!” echoed Standish.

  “Not in the sense of a man who thinks he is a poached egg and calls for toast to sit down on. But in an infinitely more dangerous way. He is the worlds supreme megalomaniac, and the main driving passion of his life is his hatred of Britain and things British—a sentiment which he does not share alone.”

  “Now, Humphrey.” Madame Pélain shook an admonitory finger at him.

  “It’s no good doing that, Marie. I know you think I’ve got a bee in my bonnet over it, but I know also that you know I’m right.”

  “You think as a nation we are disliked?” said Standish.

  “My dear sir, we always have been. But in days gone by we were, at any rate, feared and respected. Now we are neither. How the devil can we expect to be when our armed strength might just cope with a three years’ defensive war against Guatemala?”

  “A slight exaggeration,” smiled Standish.

  “But with a very nasty element of truth in it. To me, living abroad, the thing is simply unbelievable as it is to every intelligent foreigner. Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. One or two men at home have the courage to proclaim the truth; but the vast majority don’t care.”

  “You’ve got the League of Nations, Humphrey,” said Madame Pélain.

  “League of Fiddlesticks, my dear,” he answered. “If that damned hot air factory was anything resembling what it set out to be originally, there would be something in what you say. But we’re not dealing with what might have been; we’re dealing with reality. And it is my considered opinion that as it stands the League of Nations is the greatest menace to peace that exists in the world today. It is the sand into which, ostrich-like, England has stuffed her great fat head, and believing it to be a safeguard against future war has proceeded to disarm. Sorry,” he continued with a short laugh, “but it makes me hot under the collar. Look, you people, on this picture and on that.”

  From his pocket-book he extracted two cuttings.

  “If I may, I will read them to you. Here is the first;

  “‘BROADCAST TO SIX MILLION.

  “‘Six million Hitler boys and girls listened to this new version of the creed broadcast by all German stations from Leipzig, where a harvest festival of the Hitler Youth Organisation was celebrated (reported Reuter yesterday).

  “‘I believe in the community of all Germans, in a life of service to this community; I believe in the revelation of the God-g
iven creative force, in pure blood shed in war and peace by the sons of the community of the German people buried in the earth, hallowed by it, resurrected and living in all for whom the sacrifice was made.

  “‘I believe in an eternal life of this shed and resurrected blood on earth in all who acknowledge the means of this sacrifice and are prepared to bow themselves down. Therefore, I believe in an eternal God, in an eternal Germany, and in an eternal life.’

  “And here is the other;

  “‘BISHOP CONDEMNS PACIFISTS.

  “‘The Bishop of Sussex strongly disapproves of the Oxford Union’s decision that “in no circumstances will its members fight for King and country.”’”

  “More power to his Grace’s elbow! But does he really imagine his disapproval will make ’em fight? Not on your life. They’ll be lining the streets hopefully throwing red, red flowers at the great, blonde, fascinating brutes as they march in.”

  He replaced the two cuttings in his pocket.

  “Comment is unnecessary. You may not like the first, but, by Heaven above, it doesn’t produce a strong desire to vomit like the second.”

  “Mr. Gasdon,” said Standish, who had been whispering to Drummond, “it seems fairly obvious that you are, so to speak, one of the boys. And so with Drummond’s approval, I am going to take you fully into our confidence. Madame Pélain has not told you everything. So if you can spare half an hour I would like to put you wise. Only I must have your word that you won’t pass it on.”

  “You have it,” said Gasdon briefly.

  He listened with half-closed eyes as Standish told him the whole story, omitting nothing And on its conclusion he lay back in his chair.

  “How extraordinarily interesting,” he remarked. “Let us get one or two things straight. It is, of course, obvious that the Madame Pilofsky of Chez Paquay would recognise you, Marie. What about the Madame Tomesco of the Golden Boot? Would she recognise you, Captain Drummond?”

  “Hard to say,” said Drummond. “She had no cause to look at me that night, and my back was towards her. But I wouldn’t bank on it.”

  “And this Charles Burton. Is he a dark swarthy man?”